"Sky Titanics" The history of the rise and fall of the airship era. Who invented the first airship in the world and for what purposes
Once upon a time, airships were the main form of air transport. It was they who in the first half of the 20th century were often used for passenger transportation. However, over time, they began to displace the aircraft. However, airships are still actively used by people and no one is going to abandon them ..
How it all began
There is a version that the first airships were designed in Ancient Greece. Allegedly, even Archimedes himself thought about their creation. Be that as it may, we have no evidence that aeronautics existed in Ancient Greece. So France is considered the birthplace of the airship, which in the 18th century was captured by a real aeronautical fever. It all started with the famous brothers Jacques-Etienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, who in 1783 made the first flight in a balloon. Soon the inventor Jacques Cesar Charles proposed his project of a balloon filled with hydrogen and helium.
There is a version that the first airships were designed in Ancient Greece
Several more projects followed, and then Jean-Baptiste Meunier, a mathematician and military man, who is considered the “father” of the airship, came to the fore. He created a project for a balloon that would rise into the air with the help of three propellers. According to Meunier's ideas, such an apparatus could reach a height of two or three kilometers. The scientist suggested using it for military purposes, primarily for intelligence. However, in 1793, Meunier died, without bringing his grandiose project to mind. But his ideas have not disappeared, although they have sunk into oblivion for about six months. A new breakthrough came in 1852, when another Frenchman, Henri Giffard, made the first ever flight in an airship.
Information about how long he stayed in the air and how far he managed to overcome was not preserved. However, it is known that the ideas of Meunier formed the basis of his project, and the flight itself almost ended in the death of the aeronaut. Yet steam-powered airships did not catch on. Over the next two decades, such flights were rare. In 1901, inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont flew around the Eiffel Tower in an airship.
In 1901, Alberto Santos-Dumont flew around the Eiffel Tower in an airship.
This event was widely covered by French newspapers, and journalists presented it as a sensation. The age of airships began a little later, when the technology of the internal combustion engine began to be introduced into aeronautics.
Age of airships
The impetus for the rapid development of the construction of airships was given by the German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin, whose name is probably the most famous airships of the first half of the twentieth century. He designed three models of such devices, but each time they had to be finalized.
The construction cost a lot of money, starting work on the last of their LZ-3 airships. The Zeppelin pledged the house, land, and a number of family treasures. In case of failure, ruin awaited him. But here, just, success awaited him. The LZ-3, which made its first flight in 1906, was noticed by the military, who made a large order for Zepellin. So, after more than a century, the idea of Meunier came true, who wanted to use airships for the needs of the military.
The impetus for the rapid development of the construction of airships was given by Ferdinand von Zeppelin
And so it happened. The First World War turned airships into a truly terrible weapon. Similar balloons were already in service with all countries participating in the conflict, but the German Empire achieved the greatest success in this direction.
German airships developed speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour, easily overcame 4-5 thousand kilometers and could bring down several tons of bombs on the enemy. This set them apart from light aircraft, which rarely carried more than five bombs. It is known that on August 14, 1914, a German airship almost razed the Belgian city of Antwerp to the ground. As a result of the bombing, more than a thousand buildings were destroyed.
German airships reached speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour
But airships were also used for peaceful purposes. For example, for the transport of goods. Such a device could easily deliver 8-12 tons of luggage by air. Following freight transportation, the idea of passenger transportation arose. The first passenger line started operating in 1910. Airships began operating flights from Friedrichshafen to Düsseldorf. Soon, passenger traffic began to operate in France and Great Britain. The rapid development of the industry continued after the war. So in the late 20s of the twentieth century, airships began to carry out transatlantic passenger flights. In 1928, the legendary German airship "Graf Zepellin" made the first ever circumnavigation of the world in a balloon. The end of the golden age came in 1937, after the infamous disaster of the airship Hindenburg, which was flying from Germany to the United States.
During the landing of the apparatus, a fire occurred, as a result of which the airship collapsed to the ground (this happened in the vicinity of New York). 40 people died, and newspapers and experts in aviation and aeronautics seriously started talking about the fact that flying on airships could be unsafe.
In Russia
The Russian Empire did not lag behind Europe in terms of aeronautics. Already at the end of the 19th century, amateur societies began to spontaneously arise in the country, whose members tried to design their own airships. The projects of such balloons were proposed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the famous designer of combat aircraft Igor Sikorsky in the future.
The first flight of an airship in Russia dates back to around the mid-1890s.
The first flight of an airship in Russia dates from around the mid-1890s. Although this information is inaccurate. Public interest in airships did not escape the attention of the state. The construction of airships for the needs of the army and other ministries began already in the 1900s. By the time the First World War began, the Russian Empire had 18 combat airships. In the Soviet Union, airships were less popular than in Europe. There was no regular passenger service, although the arrival of the Graf Zeppelin in Moscow was widely reported in the Soviet media.
In modern Russia, airships are by no means forgotten. Moreover, there are more and more projects for introducing airships into the public transport system. So, in the fall of 2014, the issue of creating alternative modes of transport for the Russian North was discussed in Yakutia. Airships could solve this problem. Components for them are now produced by the Russian holding KRET, which is part of the structure of Rostec.
Modern application
It would be wrong to think that there is no place for airships in the modern world and that they can only be seen in museums. This is not true. Of course, the airships lost the fight for air supremacy by aircraft. Yes, passenger transportation by airships is carried out rarely and mainly for sightseeing purposes. But in fact, the scope of these balloons is still very wide: it can be aerial photography, monitoring from the air, security at events. Balloons, for example, guarded the airspace at the Olympic Games in Sochi. They can also be used for the operational detection of forest fires. For such use cases, the balloon must be securely based in one place. For this, supporting devices are used - special vehicles on which a cable system is installed, which allows you to keep the airship both on the ground and during its rise into the sky. Currently, the only domestic manufacturer of such devices is the Technodinamika holding, which is part of the Rostec State Corporation. The design is called "Aragvia-Wau". As for airships, they are still produced in many countries of the world, including Russia. So far, people do not want to completely abandon these balloons.
September 24, 1852 in the suburbs of Paris, Versailles, took to the skies first airship- controlled balloon Girard I. Length first airship was 44 m, it had a spindle shape and was equipped with a steam engine. Its designer, Henri-Jacques Girard, a former railway worker with a passion for building hot air balloons, flew over 31 km on his giant brainchild, reaching a speed of 10 km / h in the sky over Paris. Thus began the era of airships! Airships were distinguished from balloons by an elongated, spindle-shaped balloon. The balloon was filled with hydrogen - a gas that was much lighter than air, moved thanks to a steam engine that rotated the screw, and was controlled using a rudder. In the second half of the XIX century. the steam engine was replaced by an internal combustion engine designed by Alberto Santos-Dumont. At the beginning of the XX century. thanks to the support of the German official Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the heyday of giant airships began.
They were used for the transport of goods, as well as for military purposes: during the First World War, London was bombed from airships. The Zeppelin introduced many innovations: its first cylinder had a rigid aluminum structure that was stretched with fabric, then covered with paint. All this increased the strength of the structure. In addition, there were gondolas for passengers and crew, and the length of the airship reached 126 m. and covered 6 km in 17 minutes. In 1920, very expensive flights across the Atlantic in airships became fashionable among the rich and aristocrats, and airships were even nicknamed flying hotels. Unfortunately, due to the frequent air crashes associated with the use of flammable hydrogen, in the 1930s. the fashion for airships came to naught.
Around the world in 21 days
In 1929, the airship Graf Zeppelin (1.2127) flew around the world in 21 days, landing only in Tokyo, Los Angeles and Lakehurst (New Jersey). In nine years of flying, he crossed the Atlantic 139 times!
The largest airship
the biggest ever built airships became the "Hindenburg" (1.2129), its length reached 245 m, it was built in Germany, at the Zeppelin plant. But what about fate the largest airship ended in disaster.
Hindenburg disaster
Hindenburg disaster one of the most embarrassing events in the history of the world. On May 6, 1937, after completing its 63rd ocean flight, the Hindenburg burst into flames as it landed (left photo). The flames killed 35 people and 62 were seriously injured. Since then, no more passenger airships have been built.
Airships - huge structures filled with gas - appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. For several decades, they were enthusiastically received by everyone and considered a practical and effective solution for transporting large numbers of people in comfort or transporting military supplies. But in the 1930s, a tragedy occurred that radically changed attitudes towards airships. Today, after almost a century, airships are returning to the arena again, but in a new guise.
The death of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937 marked the end of the airship era. The sight of a giant German zeppelin going down in flames near Lakehurst, New Jersey scared people. The airship burned down in a matter of seconds, killing 35 of the 97 passengers, and photos and newsreels of the terrible event shocked people around the world.
Not surprisingly, the popularity of flying in massive structures filled with gas dropped to zero and the industry never recovered. But the dream of traveling in lighter-than-air vehicles has not died until now. Therefore, government agencies and private companies continue to experiment with huge airships to this day.
1 Aeroscraft ML866
Aeroscraft Corporation engineers have taken on the daunting task of building an airship with an interior space of 465 square meters.
Billed as a "flying yacht", the Aeroscraft ML866 is currently under construction and will be completed in 2020. The company's CEO and chief engineer, Igor Pasternak, said the airship would be 169 meters long and 29 meters wide. For comparison, the dimensions of the "Hindenburg" were 245 meters long and 41 meters wide, and the internal usable area was about 557 square meters.
Aeroscraft ML866 cylinders will be filled with helium, not the flammable hydrogen that caused the fire on the Hindenburg.
In operation, the new airship will be able to reach a cruising altitude of 3,658 meters and be able to fly up to 5,000 kilometers. The declared carrying capacity is 66 tons.
2 Airlander 10
Currently, the world's largest helium-powered aircraft is the Airlander 10, designed and built by the British company Hybrid Air Vehicles, which combines helicopter and aircraft technology. It reaches a length of 92 meters (for comparison, the largest passenger aircraft Airbus A380 is only 71 meters long).
The airship has a cruising altitude of 6,100 meters and can fly for up to two weeks without any people on board and about five days with a crew. The Airlander 10 can take off and land on "almost any surface". The declared carrying capacity is 9,980 kilograms.
Airlander 10 took off for its maiden flight on August 17, 2016, flying 10 kilometers in 19 minutes in Bedfordshire, UK. At the same time, he reached a height of 152 m.
3.Fireball finder
After a "minibus-sized fireball" from outer space hit the California coast on April 22, 2012, a team of scientists boarded the Zeppelin Eureka to cruise the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains and search for meteorite fragments on the ground.
On May 3 of the same year, researchers from NASA and the Institute for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) climbed to a height of 300 m in an airship, the length of which was 75 m (slightly larger than a Boeing 747). During the 5-hour flight, they looked for craters that could mark the places where pieces of the meteorite crashed into the ground.
4 Walrus
As part of the Walrus program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a hybrid airship is being developed that will be heavier than air, and it will generate lift through a combination of aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and fugitive gas generation.
DARPA officials said these modern airships are designed to overcome the design challenges faced by airships in earlier eras with the help of advanced technology.
5. The Falcon Project
Can the airship definitively solve the mystery of the supposed existence of the elusive humanoid known as "Bigfoot" or "Big Foot". Project Falcon operators think it's possible.
To that end, Project Falcon announced in 2012 that they would begin searching for the bipedal beast by deploying a remote-controlled helium-filled aircraft to watch from the sky over the forests where the creature was allegedly seen. A custom-built 14m Aurora Mk II will hunt Bigfoot, scanning the landscape with antennas and high-resolution cameras that capture a variety of bands and spectra.
6. Fish-like airship
Unlike zeppelins, airships do not have an internal support to support their "skin", and they retain their shape solely due to the pressure of the gas that inflates them from the inside. This flexibility has prompted researchers to begin developing a type of propulsion system that uses artificial muscles to propel an airship through the air, much like a fish swims through water. The so-called muscles are elastic polymer films (EAP) that expand and contract when they encounter electricity.
7 Zeppelin NT
In 2008, design company Airship Ventures in California purchased a $12 million 12-passenger zeppelin, the Zeppelin NT, built by Germany's Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH for sightseeing use.
Zeppelins returned to German skies in 1997 with the launch of the first Zeppelin NT prototype, the first Zeppelin to appear in California since the 1930s (then US Navy Macon and USS Akron plied the skies).
Airships Zeppelin NT 75 m long are much shorter than the massive Hindenburg (245 m). Also, unlike the Hindenburg, modern zeppelins are filled with helium, which is somewhat less volatile than hydrogen, but also much less flammable.
However, modern designers do not stop at the development of airships alone. One of the latest developments has become when it is really needed.
On September 10, 1908, the first controlled balloon created in Russia was flown for the first time.
The issues of controlled aeronautics in Russia began to be dealt with at the very beginning of the 19th century. So, in 1812, the mechanic Franz Leppich proposed to the Russian government to build a controlled balloon for military use. In July of the same year, the assembly of the apparatus began near Moscow. The balloon had an unusual design. Its soft fish-shaped shell was made of taffeta and around the perimeter in a horizontal plane was girded with a hard hoop. A net was attached to this hoop, covering the upper part of the shell. The most unusual structural element was a rigid keel, mounted on a hoop at some distance from the shell with a series of struts located around the bottom of the shell. The keel also served as a gondola. In the aft part of the shell, a stabilizer was attached to the hoop. On both sides of the apparatus, two wings were hinged to the frame. Through the flapping of these wings, it was supposed to move the balloon. All elements of the rigid frame were made of wood. According to tentative estimates, the volume of the shell of the apparatus was 8000 cubic meters, the length was 57 m, and the maximum diameter was 16 m. But the construction of this unusual balloon of dimensions unprecedented in its time was never completed. The shell, filled with hydrogen, did not hold gas, and it was almost impossible to move the apparatus with the help of propeller wings. For the controlled movement of such a large balloon, a propeller was needed, driven by a fairly light engine with a power of several tens of kilowatts. The creation of such an engine was an unsolvable task at that time.
Nevertheless, one cannot fail to note the originality of the design of this apparatus, which was practically the first prototype of controlled semi-rigid balloons.
In the middle of the 19th century, a number of projects for controlled balloons were proposed by A. Snegirev (1841), N. Arkhangelsky (1847), M.I. Ivanin (1850), D. Chernosvitov (1857). In 1849, the original project was put forward by the military engineer Tretessky. The airship was supposed to move by means of the reactive force of the gas jet flowing out of the hole in the aft part of the shell. To improve reliability, the shell was made sectioned.
In 1856, the project of a controlled balloon was developed by the captain of the first rank N. M. Sokovnin. The length, width and height of this apparatus were 50, 25 and 42 m, respectively, the estimated lifting force was estimated at 25,000 N. In order to increase safety, the shell was supposed to be filled with non-combustible ammonia. For the movement of the balloon, Sokovnin designed a kind of jet engine. The air, which was in cylinders under high pressure, was fed into special pipes, from which it flowed out. The pipes were proposed to be made swivel, which would allow, according to the author, to control the apparatus without the help of aerodynamic rudders. In fact, Sokovnin was the first to propose a jet control system for an airship.
The most completed project was proposed in 1880 by Captain O.S. Kostovich. His controlled balloon, named "Russia", was being finalized over several years. In the final version, it was based on a rigid cylindrical frame with conical ends, made of light and fairly strong material "arborite" (plywood type), the manufacturing technology of which was developed by Kostovich himself. The frame was covered with silk fabric impregnated with a special composition to reduce gas permeability. On the sides of the balloon there were bearing surfaces. A horizontal beam passed along its axis, in the aft part of which a four-bladed propeller was installed. The rudder was attached to the beam in front. To control the airship in a vertical plane, a movable load suspended from below served. A vertical tube was located in the midsection of the shell, to the lower part of which a gondola was attached. The volume of the shell was about 5,000 m3, the length was about 60 m, and the maximum diameter was 12 m. For his airship, Kostovich developed an eight-cylinder internal combustion engine, surprisingly light for that time. With a power of 59 kW, its weight was only 240 kg.
In 1889, almost all parts of the balloon, including the engine, were manufactured. However, due to the lack of subsidies from the government, it was never collected. And yet this project of a rigid system airship was a serious step forward in the development of controlled aeronautics, made almost two decades before the appearance of the Schwartz and Zeppelin apparatuses.
It should also be noted the work of the doctor of medicine K. Danilevsky from Kharkov, who built several small balloons in 1897-1898, equipped with a special system of turning planes. The movement of the devices in the vertical plane was carried out by means of horizontally located propellers, set in motion by the muscular strength of a person with the help of pedals. Horizontal movement was provided in the process of ascent and descent by turning the planes in one direction or another. Such devices could not find a real application, however, the technical idea of flight control was original.
Thus, by the end of the 19th century, a controlled balloon had not been built in Russia.
However, the widespread construction of controlled balloons abroad, which began at the beginning of the 20th century, in particular in Germany, France and Italy, and the significant achievements of these airships at that time, which could play an important role in the conduct of hostilities, forced the Russian military ministry to seriously address the issue of supplying the army controlled balloons.
The first attempt to create an airship on their own was made in the Aeronautical Training Park in 1908. The balloon, called "Training", was built according to the project of Captain A. I. Shabsky. The construction of the apparatus was completed in September 1908, and already on the 10th day of the same month, its first launch was carried out over Volkovo Pole near Tsarskoye Selo. The shell of the balloon had a volume of about 1200 cubic meters and was made of two kites of the Parseval system. Its length was 40 m, and the maximum diameter was 6.55 m. An 11.8 kW engine was installed in the wooden gondola, which drove two propellers. The screws were located on both sides of the gondola in front of it. "Training" took three people on board, could climb to a height of 800 m and reach a speed of about 22 km / h. The longest duration of the flight "Training" was about 3 hours. In 1909, the airship was modernized. The volume of the shell was increased to 1500 cubic meters, a more powerful engine (18.4 kW) was installed, the propellers were replaced, and the gondola was rebuilt. However, further flights did not bring great success, and the device was dismantled at the end of the year.
In the same year, the Russian military ministry purchased a semi-rigid airship from the Lebody factory in France, which received the name Lebed in Russia. At the same time, a special commission of the engineering department, led by Professor N. L. Kirpichev, was developing and building the first domestic military airship.
This semi-rigid airship, named "Krechet", was built in July 1909. Engineers Nemchenko and Antonov took a great part in the development of the apparatus. Compared with its prototype - the French airship "Patrie", significant improvements were made to the "Krechet". On the "Krechet" there was no cloth front wind cutter and the lower support pylon of the gondola, the plumage with a rigid frame was replaced by two teardrop-shaped horizontal stabilizers made of rubberized fabric, which communicated with the main gas shell. In addition, the dimensions of the gondola were increased and the propellers were located higher. All this made it possible to significantly improve the controllability of the airship and unload its aft part. The first flight of the Krechet took place on July 30, 1910, that is, a year after construction. After conducting test flights, in which a speed of 43 km / h was achieved and good controllability of the airship was demonstrated both in the vertical and in the horizontal plane, the Krechet was handed over to the army.
In the same 1910, the operation of the Lebed began. In the autumn of 1910, two more Russian military airships of the soft system "Dove" and "Yastreb" ("Duks") were built, the first at the Izhora plant in Kolpino near Petrograd, and the second by the Joint Stock Company "Dux" in Moscow. The Dove was built according to the project of professors Boklevsky, Van der Fleet and engineer V.F. Naydenov with the participation of Captain B.V. Golubov, the author of the Hawk was A.I. Shabsky.
In 1910, Russia acquired four more airships abroad: three in France - "Clement Bayard", named "Berkut", "Zodiac VII" and "Zodiac IX" ("Kite" and "Seagull") - and one in Germany - " Parseval VII", called "Vulture".
By the beginning of 1911, Russia had nine controlled balloons, four of them domestically built, and ranked third in the world in terms of the number of airships after Germany and France. Domestic airships were practically not inferior to purchased foreign vehicles. However, one should not forget that far from the best airships were purchased abroad. As for the German rigid airships of that time, which had a volume of up to 19,300 cubic meters, a speed of up to 60 km / h and a flight range of about 1600 km, domestic controlled balloons could not compete with them.
In 1912, in Petrograd, according to the project of S. A. Nemchenko, a small semi-rigid airship "Kobchik" with a volume of 2400 cubic meters was built and at the Izhora plant - "Sokol" of the type "Dove". The Falcon, compared to its predecessors, had better contours, more developed elevators and was equipped with a more powerful engine (59 kW), which drove two propellers through a chain drive. The successful flights of the Golub and Sokol, which showed that their flight characteristics corresponded to the calculations, were the basis for laying in 1911 at the Izhora plant a large airship with a volume of 9600 cubic meters, called the Albatross. Its construction was completed in the autumn of 1913. It was the most advanced airship ever built at Russian factories. It had a length of 77 m, a height of 22 m and a width of 15.5 m, with a speed of up to 68 km/h. The maximum ascent height reached 2400 m, and the flight duration was 20 hours. Two balloonets were provided in the shell, each with a volume of 1200 cubic meters. The power plant consisted of two engines with a capacity of 118 kW. The authors of the Albatross project were B. V. Golubov and D. S. Sukhorzhevsky.
In 1913, three more large volume airships were purchased abroad: Astra Torres (10,000 m3), Clement Bayard (9,600 m3) in France, and Parseval XIV (9,600 m3) in Germany. They received in Russia the names, respectively, "Astra", "Condor" and "Petrel". The Burevestnik possessed the best characteristics, reaching speeds of up to 67 km / h.
In 1914, large airships with a volume of approximately 20,000 m3 were ordered to three factories - Izhora, Baltic and Clément Bayard in France.
By the beginning of the First World War, there were 14 airships in Russia, but only four of them, Albatross, Astra, Condor and Burevestnik, could be considered suitable for participation in hostilities in terms of their flight performance. As a result, Russian controlled balloons were practically not used in combat operations. Only the airship "Astra" in May - June 1915 performed three night flights with bombing at the location of the German troops. In these flights, the airship received a lot of damage and was hardly operated in the future. In the second half of June 1915, the Astra was dismantled.
The absence in Russia during the First World War of airships with the necessary flight performance was due to a number of objective reasons. These include the government's lack of confidence in domestic developments and the associated too little funding, as well as the lack of a sufficient number of qualified personnel familiar with the airship device, its properties and operation features. An important role was also played by the fact that none of the domestic plants produced powerful reliable engines with mass characteristics that met the requirements for installing them on airships. Engines also had to be purchased abroad.
Nevertheless, in the projects and designs of domestically built airships of that time, there were many original technical solutions proposed and implemented much earlier than on foreign controlled balloons, and which were widely used at later stages of the development of airship building.
They could withstand only a few people and flew where the wind carried them. But people needed an aircraft with more payload that they could fly. Continuing to work on improving the balloon, the designers created an airship.
During its first flight, the airship Henri Giffard in 1852 flew 27 km. But the craft's steam engine was not powerful enough to turn and fly against the wind.
The first balloon flight was made by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783. A few weeks later, another balloon by the French physicist Jacques Charles took off. The balls were named after their designers - hot air balloon and charlier.
Unlike the hot air balloon, the Charlier was not filled with heated air, but with hydrogen, which, as it cools, does not lose lift (which cannot be said about air). Hydrogen balloons have become a more common type of aircraft than hot air balloons.
In 1852, the French engineer Henri Giffar improved the design of the ball: instead of a round shell, he made a cigar-shaped one, replaced the basket with a long gondola, added a steering wheel and a 3-liter steam engine. With. The vehicle was named "airship", which means "controlled" in French. The average speed of the airship was 8 km/h. However, this aircraft could not withstand even a light breeze. A more powerful engine, such as an electric one, was required. It was he who was used by military engineers Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs for their airship "La France" ("France") in 1884. The flight speed of "France" was 20 km / h, and the battery energy was only enough for an hour of work.
All of these were non-rigid airships, that is, those in which the invariability of the shape of the shell is achieved by the excess pressure of the gas inside it. The rigid airship appeared in 1897. It was built by the Austrian inventor David Schwartz. The shell of a new type of airship held its shape thanks to an internal metal frame made of aluminum. A year later, a semi-rigid airship was constructed: metal frames at the bow and stern were connected by a wooden keel.
In 1901, the Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont received a prize of 100,000 francs for flying an airship around the Eiffel Tower. Around the same time, the German engineer Ferdinand von Zeppelin began experimenting with the creation of his later famous Zeppelins. Only the fourth model (LZ-4) was successful.
Gradually, the airships increased in size and began to be equipped with not one, but two, three, and even four motors. Designers began to use internal combustion engines.
This cartoon depicts Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont. He solved the problem of controlling a large airship by designing a large rudder and a huge propeller.
Spotlights illuminate a Zeppelin bombarding London in 1916 during the First World War. German airships were the first bombers capable of carrying a large enough supply of bombs to cause significant destruction.
The first air passenger transportation was carried out in 1910 by the 148-meter Deutschland airship, followed by the 235-meter Graf Zeppelin, which carried passengers across the Atlantic Ocean at a speed of 130 km / h.
In the 30s. there were two serious accidents, as a result of which many passengers died. First there was the crash of the British airship R-101. A few years later, the Hindenburg zeppelin suffered the same fate when, as it approached the landing site, the hydrogen filling the Hindenburg shell ignited and exploded. These events marked the end of the era of hydrogen airships.
After World War II, there was a brief resurgence of interest in airships filled with non-flammable helium. The US Army used them to patrol coastal waters. There were plans for cargo airships, but that role was taken over by helicopters.
